Marx on free trade

Tom Lehman uswa12 at Lorainccc.edu
Mon Sep 27 09:50:46 PDT 1999


I noticed in this morning's business news that Huffy bike of Dayton, Ohio is shutting down their remaining American manufacturing plants. Last year Huffy whacked about 1000 jobs in the Dayton area when they closed their Dayton plant. This is a sad story because over the years Huffy had from, what I know, a fairly decent relationship with the union. Only a few years ago the union took big concessions to keep Huffy afloat. Wages went from around a decent $13.00 dollars and hour down to around $8.00 dollars an hour and benefits followed wages down too. This is the price you pay for free trade/globalization. The union even considered deeper cuts to keep Huffy afloat; there was just no fighting globalization! http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990927/qy.html


>From what I've read Huffy moved production to Mexico and they are
currently blaming China for their problems. Btw, Strobe Talbott is a Dayton boy.

Tom

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Max Sawicky wrote:
>
> >Free trade in its neo-liberal, liberal, or "marxist" variants,
> >is mostly another name for an unfettered market, or really
> >unfettered ownership of capital, since the market-like nature
> >of the result will be highly problematic. If regulating
> >trade is bad, so too should regulating domestic markets.
>
> Not at all. What I'm objecting to is the almost single-minded focus
> on trade and "globalization." The UAW finds it a lot easier to talk
> about Mexico than it does about nonunion parts plants in Ohio. All
> this focus on the MAI and WTO by NGOs is conducted in such analytical
> isolation from markets in general - so much so that you have Nader et
> al bellyaching about monopoly and insufficient competition.
>
> >Try listening to the workers on this one, why dontcha?
>
> An old Pew Center poll showed that rank & file union members were
> much less opposed to NAFTA than were their leaders. Unfortunately I
> can't find it now or I'd cite chapter & verse.
>
> As for the workers, the U.S. working class is a very complicated
> formation; I think lots of people in these debates are still
> operating with an unstated assumption that "worker" = brawny white
> male autoworker. Also, Max, I think you underestimate the solidarity
> potential of the rank-and-file worker - first, out of self-interest
> (raising "their" wages means less competition for "us"), and second
> out of real sympathy. When Charlie Kernaghan took some young
> Guatemalan sweatshop workers on a tour of the U.S. heartland, they
> were very warmly received. Problem is there aren't many people like
> Charlie in organized labor.
>
> Doug



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